by Carol A Park
“Haven’t seen much of you. I thought maybe you still needed to rest.”
She walked over to the chest of meager possessions she had collected in three days, some legitimately, and some not, and found a comfortable set of clothes.
“You’re still limping.”
“How observant of you.” She had tried not to think about that. She knew it was possible she would always have a slight limp; she hadn’t gone back to the bindbloods to ask. If that was going to be the case, so be it. If not, she’d know soon enough.
He frowned. “Linette says you’re lucky they didn’t have to amputate it. That’s what she first thought when they saw how bad it was.” He paused, as if waiting for her to respond, and when she didn’t, he went on. “Then she thought you might not be able to walk again without a cane. But apparently the salve I put on it helped to knit the essentials back together well enough, even if it didn’t stop the infection.”
“Are you trying to get me to express gratitude? Because if so, you have it, such as it is. Is there anything else you needed?”
He shook his head, sighed, and held out the book. “You said your father was a highly educated tutor.”
She looked at the proffered book, but didn’t take it. “Yes.”
“Did he happen to teach you other languages?”
She turned away to lay the clothes out on her bed. “He was more of a science person,” she said.
The disappointment in Vaughn’s voice was evident. “Oh. I see.”
“My skill with languages came from my mother.” She turned around to look at him, leaned back against the bed, and folded her arms.
“Learn to express yourself well, Ivana,” her mother had said once, “and you’ll make something of yourself. Learn to communicate with others in their own tongue, and you’ll have their respect as well.”
Ironic that all that knowing those languages had attained for her was the ability to hire herself out to people other than native Setanans, something other Setanan assassins had trouble doing.
Vaughn’s eyes lit up. “So you know more than Setanan?”
“Yes.”
He held out the book again. “Could you look at this and tell me if you recognize it?”
She hesitated. She wasn’t keen on continuing this trajectory with him; he had seen and knew too much of her as it was. But now that her mother’s voice was in her head, it was hard to ignore it.
“You can’t truly call yourself fluent in another language if you haven’t learned about the people who speak it.”
Her mother’s words would be considered borderline heretical by the Conclave. Pagans spoke other languages, not loyal Setanans. Ivana now supposed that was because the Conclave knew her mother was right, and if there was one thing the Conclave couldn’t have, it was people empathizing with those from other lands.
The few foreigners allowed into Setana, mostly for trade, were expected to speak fluent and unaccented Setanan. It was the only way they were allowed to do business here.
She took the book from him and opened it to the first page. The fastest way to get rid of him was to do what he asked. “Xambrian,” she said without hesitation. The sharp, square script was unmistakable, all corners and squat little letters as flat and stocky as the strange northerners who spoke it.
To her surprise, Vaughn nodded without questioning her. “That’s what I thought, too. Do you speak it?”
“I understand enough to get by.”
He gestured to the book. “Try reading it.”
She decided to humor him. She glanced down at the page and scanned it. She frowned and flipped to the next page, and then the next.
“I take it back. This isn’t Xambrian,” she said after about a minute. “It’s their script, but not their language.”
Vaughn shook his head. “Took me three days to come to that conclusion,” he muttered. “I thought I was just stupid.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You know Xambrian?”
He shrugged and looked away. “Enough to tell that this isn’t it.”
Curious. “I didn’t know language study was on the approved list of courses for noble sons to take.”
“It’s not.”
She raised an eyebrow, and he ran a hand through his hair, looking embarrassed. “When I was fifteen—right after my father, uh, became Ri, my old tutor left our service. My father hired a new one right away. I liked him. He told stories of what seemed to me to be exotic lands and their people—stories that I’m sure were strictly forbidden. But I was interested. So he offered to teach me a little Xambrian, since Xambria was a place he had often visited. It took six months for my father to find out. So ended my language studies.”
Ivana set the book down on her bedside table. “What happened to your tutor?”
“He was released from our service.” He walked over to the table and tapped one finger on the book. “So it doesn’t make any sense to you?”
It was the first time he had tried anything resembling dissimilation with her, and she knew immediately that he was hedging the truth. “Your father had him arrested, didn’t he?” Which probably also meant he had been executed. The Conclave took heresy seriously.
Vaughn flipped open the book again and ran a finger over one of the pages. “I think it was the first time I saw my father for what he really was, even if I didn’t want to admit it at the time,” he said softly, as if to himself. “So it doesn’t make any sense to you?” he asked again.
She let the subject drop and instead turned back to the open page. She tried reading it again, but it might as well have been nonsense. “D’nath qitanah reganthin…” she read out loud, trying a different tactic. She paused. That had been vaguely familiar. She turned the book around so she could see it more clearly and read a few more words, mouthing the sounds as she went. It took a few minutes to work out the sentence, but by the end she was sure, even though it seemed impossible.
“Burning skies,” she said softly.
“What?” Vaughn asked, stepping closer to look down at the book, as if to see what she saw. “What is it?”
“It’s native Fereharian.”
Vaugh stood in silence for a moment. “I thought Fereharian had no written form.”
Once again, she was surprised he would know that. “It doesn’t. It didn’t…” She shook her head, amazed. “But if I’m right…” She picked up the book and sank into the chair nearby, running her finger over the next sentence. “It’s not easy to decipher,” she said. “I’m fluent in native Fereharian, but I’ve never seen it in written form.” She paused to sound out some more words. “And it’s been transliterated into Xambrian, of all scripts, which makes it even more difficult. There are so many Xambrian letters that don’t have a one-to-one correlation to Fereharian sounds. Is there a pattern to the way the scribe transliterated it? Was he consistent with his endings?” She stabbed at a word she had just read. “Look, there. I’m fairly certain that’s the word for god—d’nath—which is a first declension noun, but here it has the feminine ending you would normally expect on a fourth declension noun. Is that a mistake? Was he trying to say goddess and didn’t know Fereharian well enough to differentiate? Or is it something else?” She pointed again. “There it is again, with what I think is the right feminine ending…” She trailed off staring at the page, eyes skipping around, mind racing. It was hard to tell. After all, she was only one of a handful of people she knew of who had even thought to categorize Fereharian that way, since it wasn’t written.
Vaughn hadn’t said a word for the past few minutes, and she realized she had been rambling out loud. She looked up at him. He was staring at her, not as if she were crazy, as she might have thought, but as if he were seeing her in a way he had never seen her before.
That was because he hadn’t. She pressed a hand to the page. This was dangerous. It brought back a part of her life she had long buried, long forgotten. A part she would rather leave in the dark.
She shut the book and stood up. She ha
nded it back to him. “There’s your answer.” She picked up the trousers she had laid on the bed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to change into something more appropriate.”
“Wait,” he said, putting a hand on her arm. “You mean to tell me you could actually translate this?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. With enough time and effort.” But why would she want to? She glanced at the book. Aside from that accursed awakened part of her that longed to do something that gave her back a little of the life she had left so long ago.
Back when she knew what it was to feel.
Why did some part of her want that again? Feeling brought nothing but pain.
“Help me,” he said. “Please. If you refresh my memory of Xambrian, I’m sure I could be of some use. I don’t know Fereharian, but maybe I can transliterate for you back into the common script, so it will be easier for you to translate and see patterns.”
Yes, that forgotten part of her cried. “Why?”
He let his hand slide from her arm and ran it through his hair instead. “These are fairly recent acquisitions. Yaotel is under the impression they may have some important information in them. I’m the only person here who has any knowledge of Xambrian, and he thought I could translate it. I know now that I can’t.”
She paused. “What sorts of things?”
Vaughn told her about the crazy woman, about everything Yaotel had said, about the researcher’s discoveries, and about what he had seen through the strange device.
“You have a microscope?” she asked when he had finished.
“What?”
“A microscope. The device you mentioned.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen one before.” She had?
“They’re a fairly new invention. My father had one he made himself,” she said, eyes growing distant again, like they had a few minutes ago. “But we looked at blood once. It didn’t look like what you describe. Even without the…aether.”
Vaughn shrugged. “I don’t know. They say they got it a few months ago and made some enhancements.” He tried to bring her back from wherever she had drifted to. “So will you help? If there’s anything in those books that might make the connection, we have to find it.” He was still doubtful as to whether there was, but the thought of sitting and working through them side-by-side with Ivana made the task more appealing.
Or perhaps it was the thought that if his father knew, he would be horrified. And that filled Vaughn with a sense of satisfaction he rarely felt when thinking of his father.
Ivana was hesitating. He didn’t know why. He had seen the spark in her eyes a few minutes ago, when she had started rambling about the language of the book. Had even heard genuine excitement and wonder in her voice. She had closed herself off as soon as she realized what had happened, just like before, back in the safe house, but why wouldn’t she want that? Did she like being cold and detached about everything?
“It’ll be fun,” he added, flashing her a hopeful smile.
Her jaw clenched. Finally, she shook her head. “This isn’t my problem.”
He slumped physically, as if to match the crestfallen feeling inside. But he could hardly force her.
“What gave you the idea that I might know Xambrian in the first place? Because my father was a tutor?” She raised an eyebrow to emphasize her doubt.
He withdrew the pouch from his pocket, where he had stowed it when he left his room, and handed it to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t give this to you earlier, but I forgot until this morning. It…came…while we were in the safe house. When you were delirious.”
She uncinched the leather to reveal the pendant and the note inside. She fastened the pendant back around her neck without a word and pressed out the note on her bedside table.
She read silently, and then looked up and stared at the wall. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said softly. “I’ll help you.”
Relief flooded through him, but also confusion. “What? Why? I mean—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. She glanced at the book as she turned away from him, as if meeting an old friend after some years. An old friend that she had parted with on poor terms. It was the first time he had seen her masks slide so obviously.
He knew better than to press her. “When can we start? Do you need to eat?”
“I need to dress,” she said.
He grinned, feeling reckless by his success, and let his eyes slide again to the bronzed skin at the point of her dressing gown, only the slightest dip hinting at what might be beneath. “Don’t let me stop you.”
She frowned at him, and, taking the hint, he turned to the door. “I’ll meet you in the dining hall,” he said. “And I’ll show you where I’ve been working.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Just Ivana
Ivana frowned at the word in front of her and tried sounding the vowels out a different way in her head, emphasizing different syllables in turn. Finally, she shook her head. She simply didn’t recognize the word. “Vaughn,” she said.
Vaughn looked up from his place across the table, where he was diligently transliterating Xambrian into the Setanan alphabet.
She spun the sheet of paper around and pointed to the word. “What is that supposed to be?”
He looked at it, flipped back a page in the book, found the word with his finger, and then looked back at the transliteration. “Tlaxchali? Isn’t that what I wrote?”
“Let me see it.” She slid the book from under his hands and looked at the Xambrian herself. She immediately saw the problem. “You mixed up two letters,” she said.
“What? I didn’t!”
She pointed out the offending letter. It had two vertical short legs and a long horizontal line joining them across the top, like the profile of a squat table. “See how the ends of the line stick out a tad beyond the legs? You transliterated it as though it were this letter.” She pointed to another example, which looked almost identical, except that said line didn’t stick out. “They’re completely different letters.”
Vaughn raised an eyebrow, grinning. “Legs?”
She felt herself flush, and she frowned, mostly because he had caught her unguarded. “Don’t be an ass. It looks like a table. Would you pay attention?”
He looked back and forth between the letters. “Damn,” he said. “You’re right. I did mix them up.”
“Aren’t you using the chart we made?”
He wrinkled his nose, looking sheepish, and shuffled aside a few papers to produce the phonetic chart they had made five days ago, the first task Ivana had insisted on. “I haven’t needed it,” he said. “I thought I had it down. Why’d they have to make two letters that sound so different look so similar?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She cast him a dangerous glance, daring him to make fun of her again. “But if you think of it as a table, there’s an easy way to remember. Table equals the sound tch. If it doesn’t look like a table, it’s xch.”
“Table equals tch, no table equals xch,” he repeated.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“What?”
“Say that again.”
“Table equals tch, no table equals xch?”
She burst out laughing. She couldn’t help herself. Admittedly, the latter was a difficult sound to make, as it didn’t exist in Setanan, but still…
“What’s so funny?”
“You sound like a cat about to vomit.”
“It’s a strange sound!” he protested, his own face reddening now.
She shook her head, still smiling, corrected the word, and moved on.
Truth be told, he had surprised her, and she was rarely surprised by anything. The ease with which he had adjusted to polishing rusty language skills was remarkable, considering the difficulties of the first day. The mix-up was an honest mistake, especially since scribes weren’t always careful to distinguish the two letters exactly when writing quickly; just like any language, it didn’t usually matter because a person�
��s knowledge of the vocabulary and normal sentence structure was enough to cover ambiguities.
His presence was, to her shock, actually useful. As soon as he felt comfortable with Xambrian again, his transliterations became faster. He had even devised his own system of symbols to mark up his copies, noting where words seemed off, or inconsistent, simply based on spelling.
And there were a lot of mistakes and inconsistencies on the part of whomever had written the book that caused no amount of consternation in the process of translating, but Vaughn’s eye for patterns was quickly making the task less tedious.
If she were honest with herself, which she was loathe to be on this point, she found herself enjoying and even looking forward to the time she spent each day working in the library, and not least because Vaughn’s constant company wasn’t as bad as she had imagined it would be. He had been useful, generally pleasant, and it soon became clear that they shared a common interest.
She felt almost as if she were Ivana again, when she was with him. Just Ivana.
There is no difference. Isn’t that what you told him?
It was a dangerous feeling, and she shoved it away, concentrating on her translation.
The smile Ivana had worn a moment ago had punched a hole straight through Vaughn’s gut. It was the first time he had seen such a genuine expression from her, let alone heard her laugh like that, and he found himself watching her, hoping to see it again.
But her smile had faded, replaced by the tiny creases in her brow that he now recognized as meaning she was lost in her work.
He took the opportunity of her inattention toward him to study her further.
There was something about this entire process of translating that had relaxed her. The cold mask she usually wore around him had slowly slipped, replaced by one that was, if not completely open, a little less guarded.
His eyes rested on her lips, and the ache started again. Gods, she was exquisite.